Late in the summer of 1818, a human sperm and egg united to form a human zygote.
One of those gametes, we don't know which, was carrying a newly mutated gene.
A century later, after passing through three generations, a copy of that mutation
contributed to the overthrow of the Tsar and the emergence of communism in Russia.

Improbably enough, a
single change in a single molecule
in 1818 may
have profoundly affected 20th-century world history. Without the
evil influence of the mad monk Rasputin, Russia might well have
evolved into a constitutional monarchy and communism never come to
power. Was the mutation of 1818 responsible for the power of
Rasputin? Here's what happened.

The zygote became Queen Victoria of England and the new mutation
was for hemophilia B, bleeder's disease, carried on the X chromosome.
Victoria passed the gene on to some of her children and
grandchildren, including Princess Alexandra, who married Nicholas
II, Tsar of Russia, in 1894.

The descendants of Queen Victoria who carried, or expressed, her gene for hemophilia.
(Click HERE for larger version.)

By 1903, Nicholas and Alexandra had produced four
daughters. The next year, the long awaited male heir appeared — His
Imperial Highness Alexei Nicolaievich, Sovereign Heir Tsarevich,
Grand Duke of Russia.

Tsar Nicholas with Tsarevich Alexei, 1904.

From his father, the baby Alexei inherited the undisputed claim to
the throne of all the Russias. From his mother, he inherited an X
chromosome carrying a copy of the mutant gene for hemophilia B.

Soon after his birth, signs of the boy's mutant gene appeared. At six
weeks, he experienced a bout of uncontrolled bleeding and by early
1905 the royal physicians had concluded that he was suffering from
hemophilia. In addition to this personal tragedy, the year was a
terrible year for Russia — war with Japan ended in defeat and
revolutionary fervor began to sweep the country. It was also the
year that Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was introduced to
the royal family.

Before modern medicine, life for the parent of a child with
hemophilia was unrelenting stress. During painful bleeding
episodes, little help could be offered. During healthy interludes,
constant worry that a fatal mishap may be a moment away was
inescapable. Realizing that the doctors have no answers, such a
parent may look elsewhere for help. So it was with Alexandra. She
threw herself into the church and offered fervent prayers for her
son. When no miracle came, she doubted her own worth and sought
someone closer to God to intercede on her behalf.

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin — a Russian mystic
and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family
of Tsar Nicholas II and gained considerable influence
in late imperial Russia.

In 1905, Rasputin
arrived in St. Petersburg, accompanied by his
reputation as a man of god with miraculous healing powers. His
peasant dress, unkempt manner, and personal magnetism made him an
exotic celebrity in fashionable circles and by November he was
introduced to the royal family. His immediate rapport with the
children led Alexandra to believe that her prayers may have been
answered and that Rasputin would be the intercessor to save her
son. From then on, Rasputin played a special role in the royal
court.

In time, Rasputin's penchant for debauchery became known and many
concluded that he was a fraud and a charlatan. Alexandra, however,
was unconvinced and held that the stories circulating about
Rasputin were rumors and lies. Unwilling to separate his wife from
someone in whom she believed, the Tsar refused to ban Rasputin from
court, despite the advice of many who argued that his continued
presence was an embarrassment and a liability.

Until 1912, Alexandra might have been willing to abandon Rasputin,
should anyone have been able to convince her that even a fraction
of the reports about him were true. In the fall of that year,
however, events occurred that made Rasputin's standing with the
Tsaritsa absolutely unshakable. On holiday at Spala in Poland,
eight-year old Alexei fell and triggered the worst attack of
hemophilia he had ever experienced. An abdominal bruise led to
internal bleeding accompanied by massive swelling and intense pain.
His legs became paralyzed and his suffering was appalling. For days
he cried and screamed in agony. As his condition worsened, first
drafts of his death announcement were drawn up and last rights
administered. Alexandra, without sleep for days, was exhausted and
in a state of drained hysteria.

Meanwhile, a friend of Alexandra's, Madame Vyrubova, sent a cable
to Rasputin asking him to pray for Alexei. Rasputin immediately
cabled back, "God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do
not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors
to bother him too much." A day later, the hemorrhage stopped
inexplicably. While others were puzzled by this remarkable
coincidence, Alexandra was convinced that Rasputin had intervened
with God and that a miracle had happened. From then on, nothing
could make Alexandra give up the belief that the welfare of her son
depended absolutely upon following the advice of Rasputin. Soon,
Rasputin convinced her that the welfare of Russia and the continued
existence of the monarchy also depended upon him. Rasputin's
control over the royal family was now complete.

At the time, Russia was the world's largest and most absolute
autocracy. Unwilling to discover what would happen to their
authority were the people to discover that the only heir was an
invalid in constant danger of death, Nicholas and Alexandra
insisted that the boy's hemophilia be kept secret. Although public
knowledge would no doubt have adversely affected the monarchy,
secrecy was worse. Without knowledge of the hemophilia, no one
could understand Rasputin's power over the royal family. Given
Rasputin's reputation, rumors of royal debauchery began to spread,
undermining respect for the Empress, the Tsar, and the monarchy.

However, Alexandra clung to Rasputin's advice and continued to
reject change. On February 16, 1917, the British general Sir Henry
Wilson, in Russia for the allied conference in Petrograd, recorded
in his diary, "the Emperor and Empress are riding for a fall.
Everyone — officers, merchants, ladies — talk openly of the
absolute necessity of doing away with them." In March, Nicholas was
forced to abdicate and the royal family was placed under house
arrest by the Provisional Government. In November, the Provisional
Government fell to the Bolshevik revolution. The next July, almost
exactly 100 years after that first mutation,
Nicholas, Alexandra,
and all of their children were murdered by their Bolshevik guards.

Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, the head of the Provisional Government after the Tsar,
has claimed, "Without Rasputin, there could have been no Lenin."
Certainly, without Lenin, there would have been no communist
Russia. And, without Alexei's hemophilia, there would have been no
Rasputin.

Could it be that the single mutation in the single cell
that became Victoria was responsible for the rise of communism?

R. K. Massie has written:

Had it not been for the agony of Alexis' hemophilia, had it not
been for the desperation which made his mother turn to Rasputin,
first to save her son, then to save the pure autocracy, might not
Nicholas II have continued retreating into the role of
constitutional monarch so happily filled by his cousin King George
V? It might have happened, and, in fact, it was in this direction
that Russian history was headed. In 1905, the Russian people had
had a partial revolution. Absolute power was struck from the hands
of the Tsar with the creation of the Duma. In the era of Stolypin
and the Third Duma, cooperation between the throne and parliament
reached a level of high promise for the future. During the war, the
nation asked not for revolution but for reform — for a share of
responsibility in fighting and winning the victory. But Alexandra,
goaded by Rasputin, passionately objected to any sharing of the
Imperial power. By giving way to his wife, by fighting to save the
autocracy and denying every plea for
responsible government, Nicholas made revolution and the eventual
triumph of Lenin inevitable.

In the early 1990's,
Robert Robbins
was a faculty member at Johns
Hopkins, where he directed the informatics core of GDB
— the human gene-mapping database of the international human
genome project. To share papers with colleagues around the world, he
set up a small paper-sharing section on his personal web page. This
small project evolved into The Electronic Scholarly
Publishing Project.

ESP Support

In 1995, Robbins became the VP/IT of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center in Seattle, WA. Soon after arriving in Seattle, Robbins secured
funding, through the ELSI component of the US Human Genome Project, to
create the original ESP.ORG web site, with the formal goal of
providing free, world-wide access to the literature of classical genetics.

ESP Rationale

Although the methods of molecular biology can seem almost
magical to the uninitiated, the original
techniques of classical genetics are readily appreciated by one and
all: cross individuals that differ in some inherited trait, collect
all of the progeny, score their attributes, and propose mechanisms
to explain the patterns of inheritance observed.

ESP Goal

In reading the early works of classical genetics, one is drawn, almost
inexorably, into ever more complex models, until molecular explanations
begin to seem both necessary and natural. At that point, the tools
for understanding genome research are at hand. Assisting readers reach
this point was the original goal of The Electronic Scholarly Publishing
Project.

ESP Usage

Usage of the site grew rapidly and has remained high. Faculty began
to use the site for their assigned readings. Other on-line
publishers, ranging from The New York Times to Nature
referenced ESP materials in their own publications. Nobel laureates
(e.g., Joshua Lederberg) regularly used the
site and even wrote to suggest changes and improvements.

ESP Content

When the site began, no journals
were making their early content available in
digital format. As a result, ESP was obliged to digitize classic
literature before it could be made available. For many important
papers — such as
Mendel's original paper
or the
first genetic map
— ESP had to produce entirely new typeset versions of the works,
if they were to be available in a high-quality format.

ESP Help

Early support from the DOE component of the Human Genome Project was
critically important for getting the ESP project on a firm foundation.
Since that funding ended (nearly 20 years ago), the project has been
operated as a purely volunteer effort.
Anyone wishing to assist in these efforts should send an
email to Robbins.

In this commanding book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary
world of Imperial Russia to tell the story of the Romanovs'
lives: Nicholas's political naïveté, Alexandra's obsession
with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis's brave
struggle with hemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of
luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of
passion and history—the story of a doomed empire and
the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.
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